Sonata for solo viola (1937)

Lebhafte Halbe (Lively minim) –

Langsame Viertel – Lebhaft, Pizzikato – Wieder wie früher (Slow crotchets – Lively, Pizzicato – As before­)

Mässig schnelle Viertel (Modertely quick crotchets)

As a highly accomplished violist and a composer of apparently inexhaustible creative energy, Hindemith must have seen the poverty of the viola repertoire – in comparison, that is, with the wealth of music available to the violin and the cello – as a challenge he was destined to meet. Certainly, between 1919 and 1939 he wrote as many as four works for viola and orchestra, three sonatas for viola and piano and four for unaccompanied viola. Not that the last of the solo sonatas can be claimed as part of a grand strategy: sitting on a train during a tour of the United States in 1937, he realised he needed another piece for the recital he was to give in Chicago the next day and wrote the three movements there and then as he approached his destination.

A remarkable work in any circumstances, the 1937 Sonata is particularly admirable for a fluency that betrays not the least sign of hurry or of distraction by outside events. It seems to be tied together, in an informal way, by the two-note dotted rhythm with which it begins. Certainly, that figure identifies the first of the three sorts of material that make up the opening movement, the others being rapidly articulated bravura on the one hand and expressive melody on the other. All three are developed with some intensity but it is the melodic impulse that informs the nostalgic closing bars. The dotted rhythm reappears not at the sorrowful start of the slow movement but in an aggressive march-like variant as the tempo changes. An extraordinary, resourcefully scored pizzicato episode in the middle of the movement is followed by a recall of the opening theme and the poignant harmonies that go with it. In contrast to the often introverted first two movements, the third is a passionately sustained expression of defiance based on the march-like motif and its pervasive dotted rhythm.